MEDITATION ON THE GOSPEL:

WE ARE PARTAKERS OF DIVINITY

Just as you cannot separate the divinity that fused with flesh in the person Jesus Christ, neither can you separate the fusion of the Holy Spirit from the flesh of the Christian. The soul of the Christian is eternally fused to the Holy Spirit and participates in divinity from the point of fusion on into eternity. The Spirit that resided in the flesh of the Christian has been killed by the sword of the word of God and is being cleansed from the presence of the temple as part of the work of the Holy Spirit. That old spirit of the man is dead. It has been conquered and is buried with Christ.

Our world is both spiritual and physical just as the man is spiritual and physical. This is not to say a tree or a rock possesses a spirit. But all things that have life in them, as outlined in the Creation narrative of Genesis, has a spirit or can be inhabited or at least affected by spirits. There is a ruler of the spirits of this world, the prince of the power of the air, Satan, the Dragon and the Serpent of old, who commands and directs the legions of fallen angels and demonic forces in a war against God. He uses two tools in his schemes and uses two methods to work those tools in personal interactions.

The first tool he uses is knowledge of sins that are common to man. We are not led away simply because we are tempted and fooled. We desire those things in our very flesh, so he offers us exactly what the flesh desires. This is both personally as well as among the masses as you can see in his second tool, the course or direction of the world. Individuals have been so completely swallowed up by the lies of Satan that they vainly pursuit, with others, the glory of themselves and created things. Much like the old cartoon of the rabbit on a treadmill chasing the dangling carrot it never achieves, Satan holds hope, joy, peace, satisfaction…glory in front of us through idols we vainly chase as peoples which dictates the general setting every man or woman lives in. All societies not truly rooted in Christ, of which I have never truly seen one, will follow this course which leads to destruction, wrath, and ruin. The dangling carrot leads entire nations to a fall off of a precipice which one cannot survive.

As mentioned, lies or deception is the primary tactic. Man is so weak in and of himself that the mere display of that which he seeks beckons him to follow death to its cliff. The same could be true of the whisper on the lips and slithery tongue of the deceiver. Though he may be concealed in the branches, the sweet whisper that calls you forth to the very death we are so eager to run to presents just enough opportunity to glut ourselves on the desires that are our guaranteed and prophesied ruin.

And what then once you have tasted the fruit of death? What then when you have fallen into the snare? You realize that the entire process has been a charade. You were so singly focused on that which you desired that you failed to note all heaven and earth has been witnessing this test, this temptation, this trial. You are bare before your God and man and angels. No clothing can cover the shame. Satan, the tempter and deceiver, then stands as accuser and testifies in good conscience that you are unworthy of trust or blessing or life. You are clearly an enemy of the king and a danger to all that exists and must be purged and punished.

The power and ability of God in His infinite and clearly uncontainable presence alerts you to the true danger you now face.  There is no place to run. Even in the depths of hell, God’s face is present. His power is still unlimited. He is the God over the created Hell and Hell will serve His purposes. It is no safe haven. Heaven is His home and He sits visibly on His throne. His face is its sunshine and there is no night to withdraw within. The entire present body serves God with joy and reverence and without sin. There is no adversary that you could seek help from or crevice to hide in. The same is true of earth which is His footstool. All enemies unknowingly live in the temporal crushing/crushed state under his feet. His eyes see the hearts and even mighty men, kings, are unable to control their own hearts for they are like water in His hands and He directs them as He pleases. Upon the very sight of the coming king enemies will see the face of the LORD and flee to the mountains and hidden places begging that rocks fall upon them and hide them. But death only puts you before the very throne of God in judgment that you seek to avoid. There is no escape. The serpent has done his job. He has brought death to rebellious man through the very hopes man sought exaltation and joy through.

But Christ….oh, but Christ…or but God, the glory of the “but God” phrase in the Word is still present. See, the Father and the Son are one. They are a single spirit though distinct persons. God is not schizophrenic. Nor is he simply operating through manifestations, playing three different persons one at a time. No. He is uniquely three persons and at the same time one essence. The divine one is Spirit. Christ is Spirit. The Holy Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit that resides in those predestined for partaking and thus reflecting the divinity of the godhead.  You cannot separate God the Father from God the Son. You cannot pull one or the other out of the Holy Spirit. This division is impossible. What is God cannot be dissected and removed. Neither can what God has truly joined together, knit by His hand, be removed or separated. Death would come.

Adam and Eve were knit together in marriage. Children are knit together in the womb by the hands of God. He forms their inward parts. These temporal pictures of knitting are pointers to the knitting that God does in our partaking of divinity. For He has predestined us to become one with Him in the holy nature only He has. He does this through the gift of the Holy Spirit which seals and fills our bodies. The flesh becomes one with the divine though uniquely separate and able to be separated. We know this because our bodies will die and our spirits will be present with the LORD. Our bodies will be raised …and changed…and reunited with our spirits, with His Spirit, for eternity. The death that resides in the flesh will no longer exist for it will be purged from the fabric of our former tabernacles as we become stones in the walls of the house of God. We are living stones and a temple that no hand of man has built. Has God not said that He could make children of Abraham from these very stones? Has our hardened heart not become a Child of God? Are we not the promised children by faith? Of course.

So as we stand before the throne, clearly guilty, and publicly charged and accused with no hope of overturning the verdict we know we deserve, Christ steps forth and intercedes on our behalf. “This one is mine. I have died on the cross and suffered all of your wrath Father, every drop.  This is the one you gave to me, the one I have known and cleansed by laying my life down and washing them. This is the one that will wear the robe of my righteousness. This is the one I have called brother and brought to you. Satan is right, that deceiver revealed the rebellion, the evil that was in this one’s heart. But I have touched him and washed him inside and out by my Spirit. What dwells in him now is an abundant harvest of fruit, a perfect wine, made for your lips. Watch Father as it spills out of His lips in praise. Is it not a pleasing aroma to you? Is it not the work of your hands Father, the work of my vine? Test it, see! These good fruits only come from your vine. All other vines are wretched and rotten! And He will make more Father. I guarantee it with my word, with my life. I am trustworthy Father. I give my word for Him.

Suddenly we are wrapped in a robe so clean, so white, that it shines brighter than the Son. He has clothed us in His righteousness. Satan cannot bare to stand in its presence. It drives him back into the wilderness from which he came. All that see it cannot help but praise God, for even the sight of it so clearly evokes the revelation of God in the heavenlies that all of His angels cry out “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lamb of God!”  You are aware that they are looking at you, but they don’t see you, they see Him! They see Christ. The robe, the flesh of the lamb is so overwhelming that nothing else can be seen. It covers every inch of your body and shines such that no darkness could exist within its infinite reach. You find yourself in awe? But then the fruit. God leans over and presses in and the more you are aware of His crushingly infinite presence, the weight grinds against you, not killing you though it is of a strange sort. There is pain, but peace. The peace far outweighs the pain. The pain points to the promise of peace. Somehow you know this. Somehow you know the weightiness of the glory that now presses in upon you from that very robe of righteousness, crushing and cleansing your insides, with what can only be described as like a scapel or pruning fork that is changing you, growing you and yet you are confined externally. The inside battling the outside. The weight and push of each infinitely equal and yet ebbing and flowing. Until……something changes. Something pops or bursts inside. But then it builds and swells again. This time the building and swelling doesn’t hurt. The robe no longer works against its contents, but instead expands to contain as much of the contents as it is prepared to produce.

Praise flows forth. It can no longer be bound up. The robe of the righteousness of Christ has become a wineskin. It holds the precious fruit of the Father’s work. The work of the Son that the Son has promised to bear in you. The more you are aware of it, or behold it,  the less you are able to contain it. As your mouth opens, it pours out. You try to shut your mouth, but you are too full of it. You cannot help, but open your mouth for the wine is sweet and good and the joy that it contains cannot remain in such a finite container at this time. So you speak and you sing and you testify and you praise and dance and draw and sculpt and in all you do it continues to spill out. And the LORD is pleased because the smell, oh the smell, it pleases the Father. This pleases the Son. And it pleases you. The Son is pleased because He has produced that which is pleasing to the Father. You are pleased because you experience what the Father knows is pleasing. You know it too. It is a joy to you as it is to Him. And you are pleased because you can bring it to Him and give it to Him. You partake in bringing the Father that which is pleasing to Him. The Father commends the Son in your presence. You cannot help but echo the same commendation…and then some. “You are exalted. You are LORD over all! You are worthy to be praised!”

But as you cry out, spilling more and more wine from your lips, you notice the ground cries out in praise as it consumes the spilled wine. Then you see that all that the wine touches both consume it and praise the LORD! They bow and thank and praise and then fill with the same wine to pour out for the whole earth and all that has life in it is full of the glory of God! But then you catch a glimpse of something and notice that the praise has become united and thunderous. Men of every nation, tribe, and tongue fill all that the eye can see and with every knee bowed, every tongue confesses Christ is Lord of all and this confession is spilling out everywhere! All that can be seen is covered in wine, covered in the glory of God!  And it will never end. We will feast and praise and live and never grow old. We will enjoy God and be enjoyed by Him forever having once born and had a taste for the wine of wrath, of death, that comes from knowledge of good and evil, we find we now hunger and thirst for grace. We no longer hunger to be God, but to be filled with God. We have become trees of life, streams and rivers of living water. We are now perfect for the building up as stones in the hand of God, and no longer seek to destroy our brothers and God’s glory in them by crushing them. We seek to spill out with that same glory and taste and see and savor that God is good.

This is life in Christ. This is our hope in Christ. This is our destiny as it has been purposed. We are partakers in divinity. We are children of God. We are the fulfillment of Christ Jesus’ prayer for the Father will withhold no good thing from His children. This is a good thing.